spirituality

Examine yourself to see whether you have within you a strong sense of your own self importance, or negatively, whether you have failed to realize that you are nothing. This feeling of self-importance is deeply hidden, but it controls the whole of our life. Its first demand is that everything should be as we wish it, and as soon as this is not so we complain to God and are annoyed with people.

Saint Theophan the Recluse

St. Theophan the Recluse

Source: Daily Lives, Miracles and Wisdom of the Saints and Fasting Calendar

"Many flatter themselves and consider themselves to be good, humble, and meek, but they will discover the contrary under temptation. Do not not become despondent in temptations, then, but give all the more thanks to God that He thus brings you to what is hidden in your heart - the knowledge of yourself - and wishes you to be corrected and be saved.

Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk

Tikhon of Zadonsk

Source: Daily Lives, Miracles, and Wisdom of the Saints and Fasting Calendar

"Prayer is all-powerful on account of the all-powerful God Who acts in it. It is the sword of the Spirit ,which is the Word of God. Prayer by its nature is communion and union of man with God; by its action it is the reconciliation of man with God, the mother and daughter of tears, a bridge for crossing temptations, a wall of protection from afflictions, a crushing of conflicts, boundless activity, the spring of virtues, the source of spiritual gifts, invisible progress, food of the soul, the enlightening of the mind, an axe for despair, a demonstration of hope, release from sorrow, the wealth of monks."

Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov)

Ignatius Brianchaninov

Source: Daily Lives, Miracles and Wisdom of the Saints and Fasting Calendar

"People were not created merely to live here on earth like animals that disappear after their death, but to live with God and in God, and to live not for a hundred or a thousand years, but to live eternally." -- Bishop INNOCENT, Bishop of Kamchatka, the Kurilian and Aleutian Islands

"The prince of this world blinds people who then walk like blind men, feeling their way and because of this they are constantly falling into one bog after another. Science is fraud when its facts are taken as something absolute, for tomorrow's scientific knowledge will contradict today's; most art is a deliberate distortion; politics has always been full of deceit, lies, crimes. Here everything must be understood in reverse---what they call life is but superficial, horrible pettiness, emptiness, lies with out end; in a word, it is the 'age of falsehood,' the kingdom of the prince of this world."

"He who follows properly the spiritual pathway begins to see in himself more and more sins, until finally he sees himself completely immersed in sin. Through his spiritual eyes he perceives his leprous soul. He feels with his whole heart that he is dirt and filth, that he is unworthy even to call out the name of God. Like the publican, unable to raise his eyes, he cries out with pain of heart: 'God have mercy on me the sinner.' When a person maintains his soul in such a spiritual state for a long time, he finally emerges from it absolved, like the publican."